From the Inside Out

...the kind of change and transformation that you can feel occuring deep below the surface of your skin, muscle and bones. The kind that is like a wind which can steer the vessel that you move in in strange and unexpected ways. You know that you are being set on a course...

What do you see?

As I have mentioned in previous posts, I get up very early in the morning...before the Sun rises. I typically will go and sit outside for a few moment and take in those glorious moments before the dawn starts to shine her light. This mornng as I was sitting outside holding my cup of coffee, I was watching the play of light and shadow and remembering the dream that had come in the night. This particular dream came on the back of another dream that I had received two days prior. I have been "calling" for a dream. I did not expect to wake from that first dream gasping for air and desparately looking around trying to determine which reality was the one that I found myself in. It was a "shock" dream. One in which you have no choice but to acknowledge or "wake-up" to the message that the dream is trying to convey. I am usually very skilled at dream interpretation, especially my own, however, this one left me shaken and unsure of aspects of its meaning.

If you have been following these posts then you may remember the one in which I shared the story of the painting The Creation of the Firmaments. The dream that came the other night had some of these elements...a completely white building perched on the end of a vast and expansive sea. The arrival of a great whale...except this time the whale arrived transported in the arms of a massive and swirling storm. I am still unravelling the message that were sent in that night vision. The dream that came last night provided a clue or a further unravelling of the first one's meaning.

So...back to me sitting with my coffee, watching the veil between night and day shift and looking up at the night sky. As I was sitting there wandering in my thoughts and the waking of the world, it happened - a shooting star went streaking across the sky. In my life story, shooting stars have historically signalled that a large shift and/or transformation has begun. One night, a long time ago, as I laid on a pile of wooden boards in a small rural village in New Mexico, it was a shooting star that was the final determining moment that precipitated my move to that land of sky and sand. So, this morning, I watched as that streak of stardust tore acrcoss the sky. I have felt its coming for some time now - its arrival confirmation for what I could feel but struggle to have words for. What I still struggle to have words for. What I do know is that I am changing. Of course we are all always changing, for how could we not be, but I am talking about the kind of change and transformation that you can feel occuring deep below the surface of your skin, muscle and bones. The kind that is like a wind which can steer the vessel that you move in in strange and unexpected ways. You know that you are being set on a course. For me, this always simultaneously occurs with a feeling of uncomfortable restlessness.

My most recent painting, The Becoming of Persephone also speaks to this feeling. ​

The Becoming of Persephone / 16" x 20" / 11.19.2017

This was not how I originally envisioned this painting. In some way, shape or form, all of the paintings are autobiographical - how could they not be. It is not unusual for the paintings to take on a life and/or will of their own, but this one snuck up on me. I am typically working on more than one painting at a time. This number can range from 2 or 3 up to about 9 or 10. At some point while I am working on all of them one will jump to the forefront and let me know that it is ready to be completed (at least in regards to my role in the process). If you would have told me that when I originally began this painting I would later title it, The Becoming of Persephone, I would have been extremely doubtful for I never envisioned it/her becoming what she did or having the feel that she does. This is not one of my facorite paintings. On the day that I completed her, I found myself choosing colors that I would not typically combine in order to convey the feeling of unease or uncomfortableness that I was experiencing as I watched her morph from the original inception that I had for her.

There are certain paintings that have marked a transition or a moment when my painting style shifts or changes, or when I am in the process of incorporating some new aspect of working with the paint, brushes, my soul and the images. This is one of those. She is what I think of as a transitory painting; a painting "in-between" larger movements of my life. What will follow...well...I do not yet know. I do understand that it is about rhythms and cycles that are at play. I do know that in order for her to return in the spring she must let the previous season sleep, become the compost that will nourish the new growth of the following season.

What will I do now? I will go after the riddle. I will spend time researching the images that swim through the dreams, I will research Persephone in all of her various forms throughout time. I will look for the clues that have been left for me to follow. What else will I do...keep painting and keep dreaming...

Perhaps I should sculpt chocolate nudes...

OK. I lied. I made a post/announcement that I would not be doing the scheduled blog post today. As I stepped away from the computer and walked through the house and returned to my thoughts - the ones that have been turning over and returning for the last couple of weeks I rethought my previous statement.

If this blog is what I say it is - a journey into artistic process and the life and art of one woman - then writing about these thoughts and the artistic shift that I can feel is in process, perhaps writing about it is just what I needed to do. I feel certain that there are other artists out there...and other human beings who do not call themselves artist (a point of thought that I also think about often)...who know exactly what I am talking about. Those periods of time when you can feel something shifting on an internal level but where it is going, where it will lead is unclear. I dreamt of snakes last night for the first time in a long time - I know when this happens that there is a change coming - a shedding of the skin so to speak.

So what does this "feeling of change" look like in my world? It kind of looks like the photos of my library above. Typically my sleep schedule will change and I will find myself waking in the early hours of the morning, like at 2 or 3 am. I then began prowlling through the house with a cup of coffee in my hand and my thoughts roam and settle, roam and settle. I often get much done during these wee early hours in the morning. I also love the sensation of walking through my home with a few small lights on and watching the light shift and change as the sun rises.

I am fairly certain that the 2 main creative projects that I have committed myself to in the last months have led me to exactly where I am currently at. NAKED: The Art of Exposure and Vision Shift are projects whose inherent nature were intended to reveal and transform my experience of myself and the world around me. So...I suppose I should have expected a shift in artistic direction to arise. The unsettling feeling is that of not knowing exactly where it is leading. But then do we ever really know where life is leading? We can move through our daily life with set intentions and goals, but I believe that part of living life artistically also means watching were the flow of life is changing and being open to what you had previously not seen. I spoke with an artist friend of mine the other day. She too mentioned experiencing a similar feeling. When she said that she thought she might be going crazy I laughed and thought - well, we are both in good company then.

This morning I was doing the early morning task of responding to emails, messages and social media scheduling and I was drawn to an article that anothet artist had posted on facebook. The article was from the NY Times and was titled Is the Age of the Artistic Recluse Over? This is one of those topics that have been milling over in the melting pot of my brain. The vast majority of pantings that I have sold over the last years have happened as a result of social media. It is an interesting time to be an artist. Unless you are in the big leagues and/or are dealing in the world of galleries, in many ways social media is a necessary vehicle for getting your work out into the world. Although in many ways I would be content to do what I do and not have it be public - that does not pay the bills and I also believe that sharing your work with the world at large is part of the definition of being an artist. So I am both grateful for social media and I also find myself feeling ambivalent about it. As much as it can be a useful tool it can also be a sucking vortex of time. I also do not want to live a life in which a social media persona becomes my identity. Who someone is on social media can be a very far distance away from who they are in person. Not to mention that spending any time watching or waiting for LIKES and SHARES begins to feel like a strange way of determining any sort of value for your work, time or effort.

So...where does this leave me?

Well...walking around the house at 2 or 3am...at times contemplating becoming a sculptor of fine chocolates and then laughing because knowing me I would begin to sculpt chocolate nudes - but that is a whole additional topic for another time! Other contemplations include my beliefs that the way I, or any of us, lives our lives is a fine art onto itself. Sometimes I wonder if I could disappear from social media and still accomplish what I believe is my purpose. But in this moment in particular I am curious. I want a conversation with other artists. I am curious regarding who amongst us is also feeling a shift of undetermined origins? I want to ask you my fellow travellers how you really feel about social media?

So today's blog post is a bit of insight into the ramblings of my mind and soul. It is also an invitation for my fellow artist (and any other human being who does not think of themself as an artist) to comment, leave a message and let me know how you feel about feeling or knowing that a shift in your work is in process but not yet realized. Are you wondering around your homes at 3am too?

Perhaps by the next blog post I will be back to the regularly scheduled programming...but I have my doubts.

I am awake. It is hours before the Sun will rise and wash over the landscape; bathing what is now unseen in light and making the unseen visable.

There are nights that as I lay sleeping the dreams wash over me and I am awake in other worlds or perhaps I am awake in other layers of the world within which my sleeping body lies. At these times the unseen is also made visible. I am a dreamer...in many, many ways. There are certain dreams that come in the arms of sleep, dreams that carry a message and leave such an imprint upon the eye of my soul that they are impossible to forget. Within the multitude of these dreams there are a handful which always begin with the Moon. She is always full and she is always dancing above the vast expanse of the Ocean. For as many of the Moon dreams that I have received, there are an equivelent amount of paintings that move through me and find there way into the world. The dream that whispered of the image below began over 15 years ago. Periodically the dream has returned, or rather the dream has continued over the course of the last ten years. Each time it returns it begins with the opalescent Moon; heavy, full and hanging over an unending expanse of Ocean.

Dream of the Animals from the Sky (2002)

In the dream, it is night and I am looking out a window which is very high above the ground. The Moon is full and bright and hanging above a vast expanse of water. When I look down I see that the expanse of water reaches to the foundation of the building. From my viewpoint high above there is no shoreline that is visible. There is only water as far as my eye can see. There is a brief moment when my thinking mind kicks in and I wonder if the building that I am in is rising from the Ocean herself.

I turn from the window to look inside the room in which I am standing. I am in a small bathroom and my young son is witg me. Although I understand that the room I am in is a bathroom, I also understand that it is something else. It resembles a long hallway and leaves me with a strange and surreal feeling that I am somehow within a tunnel. Everything in the bathroom is white in color. Everything in the bathroom is pristinely clean and emminates with the same opulesence as the Moon.

I turn to once again look out the window and accutely focus my eyes upon the water searching for some understanding or a clue as to why we are here. A shadow begins to surface upon the waters. The shadow rises and a dolphin breaks upon the slow rolling waves. Once it has broken through the water it turns and looks directly at me. I know that it has come for me. I tell my son to look out the window. When he looks out the window, he tells me that he can not see anything. I look out the window again and see that the dolphin has come up on the land which has mysteriously appeared around the building that I am in and it is underneath the window that I am looking out of. We make eye contact and the cetacean turns and reenters the water.

A few moments later I hear the sound of wind it is a whistling sound which is progressively getting louder and stronger. Within a few moments, a large white whale falls from the heavens and into the water. There is a great splurging of water which is displaced and set in motion. In the splash and displaced water that results from the whale’s arrival, I begin to see a multitude of shapes and shadows surfacing from the depths. The water is filled with a multitude of creatures. As I look at the creatures, I realize that some of them are from times that we consider to be pre-history. At first I think that all of the creatures are from times past; and then I realize that there are also present day animals and animals that I have never seen or heard of before. Somehow I understand that they are the creatures and beings that are still to come and they have not yet been seen on our present day earth. Some of the creatures begin to surface and walk upon the land. As I am watching them walk upon the earth I realize that they are entering the building that I am in. They ascend the internal structure of the building and find me and my son in the white bathroom. One by one, they singularly parade by us, each one pausing to ensure that eye contact has been made as it passes by and exits through the window back into the primordial waters from which it came.

The final creature, which is similar in shape to that of monkey and is entirely white in color, jumps onto the sink near where I am standing and waits for me to look at it. We lock eyes and I see my own eyes reflected in the creature’s face. I then realize that we are standing in front of a mirror and the reflection shows that we share the same eyes. In as much as we are different, we are the same. We are reflections and images of one another. The actions of one will affect the world of the other. The creature moves toward the window, takes one last look and then is gone. I watch as the water enfolds and engulfs the creatures of my dream and returns them to the place of their origins. The Moon's lights begins to fade and I am washed in darkness and sleep.

A couple of years passed after this dream occurence before I would once again awake in the dream world to find myself in the depths of the ocean. This time I was a whale. I was swimming with a pod and I was singing there song. Each sound reverberating through the depths of the water.

In 1991 an all white male humpback whale was photographed passing Australia's most eaterly point. At the time of the sighting this whale was the only documented all white humpback to have been recorded in the world. The Australian Aboriginal community named the whale Migaloo, the word that they use to describe a "white fella". Migaloo is suspected to be an an albino whale, but without definitive evidence for the moment he is known as a “hypo-pigmented” humpback. Humpback whales are an endangered species. Migaloo is part of the east Australian humpback population, suspected to number around 15-17,000 individuals in 2012. This population was likely around 30,000 before commercial whaling began, but was possibly as low as 104 individuals after commercial whaling on humpbacks ceased in the 1960s.

Humpback whales grow to be about 12-15 metres long, weighing 25-40 tons. The females are slightly larger than males, as with all baleen whales. The four-chambered heart of the average humpback whale weighs about 195 kg about as much as three average adult human beings. (Really think about that for a moment.) Humpbacks travel in large, loose groups. Most associations between humpbacks are temporary, lasting at most a few days. The exception is the strong and lasting bond between mother and calves. Up until September 2011 Migaloo was thought to be the only all white Humpback Whale in the world. Then amazing footage emerged of a 100% all white baby humpback calf.

The humpback whale is a baleen whale that sings amazing love songs. Humpback whales are renowned for their ability to produce songs of remarkable beauty, complexity, and duration. But despite decades of research, scientists still aren't sure why these whales engage in such elaborate acoustic displays.

To hear the song of the humpback whale you may click on the Download File button below.

Coastal shamanic cultures rely on whales for a variety of reasons. Different tribal cultures believe that sound holds the world together and that the whales are the record keepers and their songs are the record of Mother Earth. They are the caretkaers of the stories. Many indigenous peoples believe that Creation was sung into existence.

I believe that If we can find our own voice in the world, our own creativity and unique sound, our song, we can metaphorically and literally sing ourselves into existence. ​

In Gratitude, Love & Art,~Heather

If you are interested in learning more about Migaloo the white humpback whale I invite you to check out the following website - http://migaloo.com.au/

I am often amazed when I look back and see what has caught my eye and imagination each day. They (the images), much like my paintings feel like communion. An interchange or sharing of thoughts and emotions and a process in which messages, whispers and stories reveal themselves through a process of co-creation.

A Sense of Place (2007)

In 2007 I began a project that I called A Sense of Place. A project in which I made a commitment and a promise that I would actively and consciously engage in a practice of strengthening my relationship with the land that I lived on and the community that I was part of. The commitment was simple; everyday I would carry a camera and I would walk through the community in which I lived. My definition of community included my neighborhood/town and the natural world that was embedded, inseparable and interwoven with the constructed world of of our human interactions, inhabitance and the society had been built up around, through and upon it. I carried the camera to document my adventures, what was revealed through the process, and what my eyes had been opened to that had previously gone unseen.

I experienced and learned much in that year. I learned about the watershed that supplied flowing life to my everyday world. I learned about the cycle of life, birth, growth and death. I learned of the plants and animals that I shared the geography of my existence and the world that we all knew as our home. I learned about the impact that we curious humans have on the world around us. I also learned that the more I became aware of the movements of the world around me, the more I knew of my own rhythm, impact and my purpose within it.

The "framing" of this mysterious and gorgeous world through the lens of the camera allowed me to shift my vision. It afforded me the opportunity to slow down and see from a different perspective what on other occasions I had been moving to quickly to acknowledge, notice and see. ​There was something exquisitely beautiful in returning to and/or passing the same giant pine tree everyday and watching as its gorgeous, aromatic, sticky life force flowed in the spring, gummed in the summer and froze into magnificent blue, purple, white and pink crystalline structures in the arms of winter.

Interestingly enough, I do not enjoy carrying a camera when I travel to a place that is new to me or when I am a "visitor". I have a natural resistance to doing so. The further away from where my life is centered and lived on a daily basis - when I am a "tourist" so to speak, the carrying of the camera can somehow feel rude or strangely wrong. My eyes, being and senses are already so engaged and swimming in the multitude of new sounds and sights that the camera can feel like an unnecessary intrusion. In these times it can feel like I begin to rely on the camera to shift my vision and only succeed in creating a distance between myself and the newness of the environment and experience. It can also feel like I am using the cameras ability to "remember" instead of my own. I travelled to New Mexico twice a year for 5 years and completely moved my life there before I ever took a photo of that land.

​However...in the place that I inhabit, in the place that I rely upon as a daily source of my existence; the camera becomes a pause and a shift in the way that I can see. It is an opening and an invitation to the world around me. I am called to notice, to see differently, to not take for granted what surrounds me as a result of the regularity with which I pass by and/or my familiarity with it.

Vision Shift (2017)

I have now been living in my current home and location for little under 6 months. I have once again found myself carrying a camera for the same reasons I did in 2007. The reason or intention that I am engaging in the process is the same as it was ten years ago. It is the process itself that is now slightly different. Technology sure has come a long way in the last 10 years.

​After taking an initial photograph I do a very similar process as the one involved in the creation of my paintings. I "shift" aspects of the image; altering qualities of light, hue, distortion, inversion, contrast, etc. I think of the process and its actions as a series of doors. One door opens to reveal the next - each door revealing what had been previously unnoticeable or unseen to my eyes.

Communion

Communion / 16" x 20" / acrylic paint on canvas / 11.00.2007

Writing on Communion (2007)

Sometimes the way a painting begins and takes form is a disorienting experience for me. Although I always feel at peace and at home within myself when I am holding the brush in my hand and watching the colors swirl into formation, sometimes I feel as if I am being deconstructed. Through the experience of creating, I am being taken apart and then recreated in ways that I do not always understand. ​When a painting comes into being in this way, it usually happens with a simple and yet overwhelming feeling that some intangible form, feeling, force, thought or aspect of change is lying just beneath my surface. It feels as if it is lying in wait underneath my very skin until I am ready to accept where it will lead me, until I am ready to allow it to rise to the surface and transform my existence from the world and messages of my inner being. It is reminiscent of an alchemical process in that my senses, body, and spirit have taken in ingredients that are being mixed and transformed within, in order to be transmuted and thus transform the outer. ​I have learned much from the paintings that have come through me in this way. One of the most important things I have come to understand is that I do not always need to understand. The messages of the paintings that come in this way are not meant to be instantaneously integrated, understood or easy to dissect. They are the very reflections of change themselves. Some aspect of myself, my spirit, my body, or my being is in a state of transformation and change. I have learned to accept that I do not always have neat explanations, eloquent prose, or a nice, neat, pretty bow to wrap a painting up with.

The images that take shape in this way, often continue to transmit their lessons to me for years to come. I have had the experience of looking at these paintings years after they have been brought to the canvas and understanding things that I did not, or could not have understood when the painting came into existence. I often find myself chuckling at such moments, for what I have come to understand or see has been literally right in front of my eyes for quite sometime. I will chuckle again after additional time has passed, and I come to the realization that what I thought I had finally understood had an entire additional layer and depth that I had not yet been privy to. They are my teachers and I am their student, and I experience and accept them as gifts from places and realms that are Mystery to me.

As I look at “Communion” now, I have more questions than I do answers. Is the sun setting as a result of society’s disregard and inability to be aware of the gifts and beauty of our Mother Earth, or is the sun setting because of the simple and glorious beauty that is a sunset? Is the figure on the top layer of the Earth male, or is it female? If the top figure is male, does it represent the suppression of feminine energy and the dominance of a patriarchal society or does it simply speak to the beauty of true intimacy and communion between all living forms? These are just a few of the questions that I am left with as I walk away from laying the paint on the canvas.

In Gratitude, Love and Art,​~Heather

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There is a space and time that exists only before the first rays of the rising sun can be felt and seen. This is when I wake. It is the pause before the world starts to stir. It is the pause in which what has come in the blanket of the night begins to turn and retreat into the richness of the shadows. It is the space before the stillness has been broken. This is when I most fully know myself. This is when I am most able to hear, see and touch my soul. This is when I consciously engage in communion with the source of my existence.

Prior to August of this year, I had experienced a period of time with a multitude of major life transitions. Throughout this period much of who I had known myself to be was called into question. The voice of my Mother as she prepared to leave this earthly plane formed swirling eddies out of what had been flowing rivers in my identity and psyche. Her words and thoughts of who I was or was not swirled with all of the other changes that had so recently occurred. I found myself struggling to hold on to who I had conceived and believed myself to be. Time and life continued to move in an erratic and previously unknown way over the next six months. There was no "normal". There was no getting back to "normal". Normal would never again be what normal once was.

​I found myself and my identity being furthered called into question by the relationship that I had begun ten months prior to my Mother's passing. The truth is that I was not who I had been before. The truth is I was exhausted; physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I needed time. I needed space to sit with the parts of me that remained. I needed time to grieve the loss of the parts of me that no longer knew their own name. I needed to enter the silence and sort through the rubble. When asked to prove that I was still who I once had proclaimed myself to be; I could not, for I was not. The relationship ended and I began.

In those early morning hours, before the light reveals the day, I began the long walk home. Who was I when I was stripped bare? Who was I when I turned off the cacophony of sound, stimulus and opinions of the world and those who believed that they knew me? Who was I when I stood naked in the mirror and saw myself through my own eyes and the eyes of my Creator? Could I dissolve my own entrapment? Could I set myself free and welcome the form that I would take? In solitude, could I reach into myself and find my truth, my beauty and my soul?

​In the solitudeI found myself to be spiritually pregnant. Once again I began to hear that music, the hidden song that my soul was revealing. A deep and lavish richness is gathering within me and within my hands. It is from this palette that I shall paint.

In Gratitude, Love & Art,​~Heather

Solitude's Palette (detail)

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Those of you who know me on a personal level have probably on occasion heard me say, "both of these things are true simultaneously".

A few days ago a strong storm came through where I live. I woke up feeling like the storm that had passed through during the night had somehow become part of my internal landscape; a disturbance of the normal condition of the atmosphere, manifesting itself by winds of unusual force or direction. Throughout my life there have been periods of time when I have been deeply aware that I am in the middle of a significant transformational shift. I believe that for the most part we are all in a constant change/state of transformation (if we so choose, welcome and allow). What feels poignant about certain periods of transformation is mylevel of awarenessregarding the shift that is occurring.

I could feel the storm inside me. I could feel it changing, rearranging, cleansing, and breaking previously constructed parts of my identity. I cannot say it is a comfortable feeling. It can be rather unsettling, especially when the feeling is particularly strong. It feels like an electrical storm deep in my core. I have had similar experiences before but this felt different. I believe the difference lied within the sharp level of my awareness regarding the significance and impact of my choices on where this transformation would lead.

​What did I wish to leave behind? What was no longer mine to carry? What had I forgotten and sat aside that I needed to be willing to pick back up and walk with? What parts of me had formed around others beliefs about who I am or who I should be? Could the storm that I am feeling assist me in shaking loose what was not solid and core? Could it move away debris and reveal what is strong, rooted and growing inside of me? There has been one other time in my life when this feeling came on with such intensity. I started pouring through my journals to try and connect the pieces. Eureka! I found it. It was 10 years ago and it was one of the most prolific years of my life and artistic practice. It was also when I was working on a piece that I called Remembered Pieces.

​Interestingly enough, I never considered this piece completed. It had always been my intention and desire to construct a room out of the panels of canvases. A room that when constructed would create a universe and beyond.​

When I reread my original writing for this piece I knew that my feet were once again being placed on a path that I believe to be in alignment with my purpose.

A Prayer of Re-membered Pieces

Beyond the Veil of my human existencedeep in the Ancient Wombwhere the creative Soil is rich with the dust of a galaxy of Stars

I Cry out to the Divine

on tears formed from the Waters that rise and fall in my bodyrhythm takes form and my Soul begins to Sing

I am a song of Re-membered Pieces

my Humanityachesto knowto touchto contactto remembermy Divinity

the Call is returned, whispered on the Windsmoving the delicate strands of the Webwith the echo and reverberation of the Voices of the Holies

I Cry out to the Divine

on Winds formed from the direction and intention of my BreathLife takes form and is carried from one Being to the next

I am a Story of Re-Membered Pieces

my Divinityachesto knowto touchto contactto Re-membermy Humanity

buried deep within this Temple of Skin, Bone and Flesha powerful medicine is knowncooked by the Fire that in its hunger devours all illusion

I Cry out to the Divine

Mountains and Valleys sculpted by the heat and movement of my Blooda landscape of great Beauty and forgotten history

I am a body of Re-Membered Pieces

my Humanityaches to knowto touchto contact to remembermy Divinity

on the other side of the mirrored Looking glassthe Eyes of the Snake are cloudedpreparations are being made to Shed its Skin and cross between the realms

Change can come in an instant, forever changing the landscape that is familiar and known. Change can be subtle and unseen, moving under the surface undetected until it is ready to show its new form, its tender untouched skin.

Prior to 2012 I lived in the same location for 15 years. I had come to know this place and I had come to know my place within it. In the five years that followed, I inhabited and/or established 12 different dwellings, 12 different homes, 11 of which I personally lived in for various moments or lengths of time.

The cycle of the last 18 months, a year and a half as we currently mark the passage of time has been one in which unforeseeable changes, transitions, beginnings and endings have continually rolled over my internal and external landscapes with the unpredictable movement of a great and massive body of water, like the coming of a storm that lingers, shapeshifts and takes new and uncertain forms. I said goodbye to my father as I knew him in this world to be. Five months following his passing I would care for my mother as she too took her leave of this earthly plane. I have walked and lived on the desert sands of the southwest and I have stood at the shores of the Mother Ocean and tasted her salted memory. I have returned to the land that birthed and raised me: revisiting what had formed and began my construction as the being that I had come to know myself to be. I lived through the season which I have come to call My Winter in the House of Ashes; four containers of those who had passed grouped in passage in their respective urns. I welcomed a new love into my arms and I opened my arms to release a love that I no longer knew how to hold. I have watched as one of my four legged companions, a teacher and a friend diminished quickly from this world, leaving another void and space that echoed with what once was. I lost and found myself, unsure of what remained, forever changed by the movements of lives and the marching of time.

I am inhabiting a new place, a new home once more. One previously unknown to me. I am in many ways unknown to myself. I am a creature who deeply inhabits, one whose foundation reaches out like the roots of a tree, connecting to the soil in which it has grown, from which it has come. What happens when the soil is scorched by the cleansing of a great fire? What happens when the forest burns and your roots, your foundation no longer stands as it once did? What happens during the period of time when the landscape lies dormant in appearance, cleared of what had once grown? Is it possible to become quiet and still while the life underneath connects to the nutrient rich ashes in order to begin to push up and live again? I have asked myself if I can be comfortable not knowing what that new form, that new life will take.

Under the Sheets of Rain was the first painting that I completed after my Mother's Death. The paintings always come first. Until a feeling or experience has been moved through me by means of image, color, paint, I often struggle with "words" for they are not my first, best or preferred language. Under the Sheets of Rain was painted while I lived in the home my parents' had built a life in. A period of time which is included in a chapter of my life that I think of as the Interstice - an intervening space, or an interval between spaces and times.

Under the Sheets of Rain

I smelled the coming of the rainsaroma of incense washing away flesh, bone, blood, remains

I felt each raindrop as it fellbecoming part, indistinguishable from the rising swell

I heard the moisture fall aroundI am the voice of its collected flowing, the naming of its sound

I tasted the salt of a torrent of tearscollected waters of lives and rivers held in divine liquid spheres

I saw the world mirrored in every dropmerging into awareness, absence of separation; no start, no stop

I am under the sheets of rainblanketed in waters of waking and sleepingI am under the sheets of rainsheathed in memories and weepingI am under the sheets of raindays and nights passing without numberI am under the sheets of raindescending like a curtain of uncertain slumber

obscuring what I believed to have knownobscuring what I believed myself to be

until

the force of its falling was caressing my skinreminding me of what must wash away and what life chooses to begin

I am under the sheets of rainit has soothed the burning pain, fire of rebirthI am under the sheets of raina seed receiving nutrients deep within earthI am under the sheets of rainvision washed clean by elements hidden, revealed, seenI am under the sheets of rainre-membering how beauty can be transmuted by pain

I smelled the coming of the rainsaroma of incense washing away flesh, bone, blood, remains

I felt each raindrop as it fellbecoming part, indistinguishable from the rising swell

I heard the moisture fall aroundI am the voice of its collected flowing, the naming of its sound

I tasted the salt of a torrent of tearscollected waters of lives and rivers held in divine liquid spheres

I saw the world mirrored in every dropmerging into awareness, absence of separation; no start, no stop

As always, I thank you for the moments you choose to enter my world. My Hands, Your Hands,

In beauty, love and art,​~Heather

I invite you to leave a comment by clicking on the word comments below.

Following "The Dream of the Painted Face"​ it would take another 9 years before I began engaging in a sustained practice of painting. On that particular day in July of 2004, when I sat in front of the canvas and held the brush I considered the act of painting to be medicine. ​

Arrhythmia

The canvas seemed so large. Where do I start? How do I start? How do I begin to put what I am feeling, what I cannot explain in words onto the big open white space? My world was imploding, exploding, opening, closing, ending, beginning. I remember feeling as if my heart was physically detaching from my body and was leaving a bloody and oozing wound and no matter how hard I tried, I could no longer hold it in the place that it once lived. At the same time, I felt as if I wanted to rip my heart out, to set it free and yet it refused to let go and surrender to the freedom that it had so long been waiting for. It clamped down even harder and pumped the hurt through my body.

I forgot about trying to figure out where I should begin and I surrendered to the sensations of my heart. As I sat and allowed myself to feel the contortions of my distressed organ, I realized that the middle of the canvas had begun to beat. Rhythmically in and out, thump, thump, thump.

If my life as a whole no longer made sense, if there were only bits and pieces, only fragments that I could grasp and understand, I needed a way to express them. As I painted I felt a release or a transformation of the confusion, the sorrow, the hope, the promise, the memories, the fear. I felt as if I did not have to label or define these things. What was before me was the truth of my personal experience. This did not need to make sense. It was not wrong. It was not right. It simply was. It simply still is. There is no need to explain. There is no need to defend. There is no need to understand. It is simply a visual representation for that which I did not have words eloquent enough to articulate.

The way the paint felt moving beneath the bristles of my brush…the way the red looked and felt as it spread across the canvas...the way the handle of the brush felt while I held it carefully in my fingers…the way the rhythm of my heart began to smooth and become one with my breathing. I was no longer holding my breath, it was flowing. I was beginning to move through the fragmented pieces of my life and my heart.

It began with the heart in the center and ended with the unfinished coiled snake in the bottom left corner. Part of the gift of this painting was the knowledge that the healing, growth or transformation was not complete as a result of expressing it on the canvas, but that the start had occurred there. The painting is a witness to my experience. The snake is a reminder that the transformation caused by the experience is never done and that one experience always leads to another.

​The ending is always and also a beginning.

In Gratitude, Love & Art,​~Heather

If you would like to leave a comment, question or thought, I invite you to click on the word comments below.

Each time that I enter the studio and prepare to paint, I pause and look at my hands and say in prayer, "My hands, Your hands". This is also true when I prepare to write, and cook. That remembrance is honestly something that I am striving to hold at each and every moment.

on the Origin of Matter, Mater and Mother

Within the origins of Eve's name are the whispers of multitudes of names and stories.

​A dictionary and thesaurus can paint words of understanding regarding the relation between matter, mater and mother.

or...

I could paint for you.

If I could, I wouldwhirl pigments into eddies and create you visible in energetic glowthe matter and mother which embraces you

If I could, I wouldlayer incandescent hues to mirror the beauty of your muscle, skin and bonerevealing the light my eyes holds you in

If I could, I wouldgracefully trace the curve of your hips in the movement of fine sable brusheswhispering of the worlds cradled within your form

If I could, I wouldmerge the shades of your soul with the rhythm of my hands ​giving voice to the map of stories on your skin

If I could, I wouldbathe you in warmth and ardor, creating a sensation of bodily heatyou would light the garden in your brilliance

If I could, I would Glow

In dedication, gratitude, remembrance and love to the Divine Feminine and the Garden of Eden that lives within each one of us. Shine ladies Shine.

Venus of Moravary​22,800 B.C.EMammoth Ivory figurine carvingFound in the area of Moravay in Slovakia.

I will be honest. I first began conceiving of NAKED: The Art of Exposure for two main reasons. The first reason lied in, and with, my unabashed love of painting the nude form and the second reason lied within a desire to deeper understand viewer’s responses to nudes. The wide variety of responses and/or, interestingly enough, the lack of response to the nudes that I have painted over the years has been of curiosity to me. The nude has existed in all times in human history, the human body has always been one of the principle subjects for artists. Curiosity continued to grow and eventually turned into a desire to know the story of nudes and our human reaction to them throughout our human experience.

Although these two main reasons still exist and are an ongoing component of NAKED, as always with these beautiful questions, curiosities, and rabbit holes; I have followed the trail as it has led me and I have arrived in many ways at myself. NAKED has become just as much about my ongoing engagement with revealing myself to myself. The lifting of my own veil so to speak. In choosing to lift the veil I am finding myself being reminded of the source of my divinity, our collective divinity and the consciousness which we share. How at every moment we are co-creators in this world that we are all imagining. Now, I am aware that these might seem like some grand jumps in thought to be making, but perhaps as I continue to write and share my thoughts with you, you will join me and we can walk alongside each other for a while. If you find yourself on the road and you think you are walking alone, look for the glow.

I promise to do the same.

Glow (detail) / 20" x 16" / 10.14.2017

GLOW(noun)

a light emitted by or as if by a substance heated to luminosity; incandescence

brightness or color

a sensation or state of bodily heat

a warm ruddy color of the cheeks

warmth of emotion or passion; adore

​(verb)

to emit bright light and heat without flame. become incandescent

to shine like something intensely heated

to exhibit a strong bright color; be lustrously red or brilliant

(of the cheeks) to exhibit a healthy, warm, ruddy color​

to become or feel very warm or hot

to show emotion or elation

More to come on the topic of glow soon. Perhaps while you are waiting, every once in a while you think about glow. More than think about it, perhaps you have an experience of it. You could even try walking down the street while simply thinking about glowing and see what happens. You could try it while sitting in your chair, right now, where you currently are. I highly encourage it.

The Dream that inspired the painting occurred in 1995. This painting was the first time that I picked up a paintbrush and knew that I was a painter. I thought it was appropriate to start here. I have made a commitment, taken a vow so to speak, that I am willing to share my words, thoughts, the voices behind, in and speaking from the images in the paintings. So here, in this strange world of blogs I will begin. Postings will happen on Sundays and Wednesdays. Once a painting's story has been shared, it will then become viewable on the website.

I am sleeping in my bed. At first I am confused and slightly disoriented. I cannot discern whether or not I am dreaming. The dream vision is identical to the world I inhabit when by current modern and societal standards I am considered to be awake. Everything is the same, except for the awareness. I am aware that the night covers me like a blanket while I lie sleeping in the bed. Although I can see nothing that is different, I am aware that the room feels charged with electricity. Then I realize that I am seeing while I lie sleeping and I can sense that something is making its way towards me. The veil between worlds feels as if it is being stretched so thin, it ceases to exist and an opening is possible. While I lie asleep in one world, I am waking to another.

Underneath the mattress and frame of my bed, a hole opens up. The hole is just large enough to allow the form of a human body to pass through. I watch as he steps out of the hole and extends his hand towards me. His being is beautiful. My mind tries to pull the memory of his familiarity to a logical place in my thoughts but it will not come. I take one last look around the room and at the body sleeping next to mine and then I follow him into the hole. I enter in the same manner as he, arms first, followed by the head. It is much like diving. I am swimming in a tunnel filled with water. I do not worry about breathing and I do not question the means of travel. I sense life and worlds existing beyond the membrane of the tunnel. It is understood that the rules of matter and physical form do not apply in the same manner in this world as in the one I have recently left behind.

The tunnel begins to slope gently up and light begins to filter into the passageway. He lifts himself out of the tunnel and reaches for my hand to assist me in my exit from the transitory passage. I enter into surroundings that are new to me. It is dusk and I stand in the center of a clearing in the woods. At the edge of the clearing is a multi-level house made of rough logs. A soft iridescent light shines through a window on the second story. He begins to walk to the door and I follow without question or thought. Upon entering the structure, he climbs a set of stairs and gestures to a wooden chair that waits near the glow of the lamp that I saw from outside. I sit in the chair and wait as he goes to another section of the house. He returns carrying a small carved wooden box. He places the box on a table next to me and opens the cover. Sitting across from me, he takes a pallet from the box and begins to paint my face with his fingers. Blue vertical stripes the color of the sky as the sun begins it descent are outlined in a thin stripe of white and again in a thinner strip of black. When he is finished he holds a mirror up to my face. Although I recognize the face that is reflected back to me, I also understand that I have been transformed. Something has occurred that has changed my footsteps and the path that I will walk on in the world that exists on the other side of the tunnel. “What does it mean?” I ask.

“I will come for you again when you are ready to know.”

These are the only words that are passed between us and they are conveyed through the sharing of thought and not by the use of the mouth, lips or tongue.

He stands up and begins to walk towards the stairs. I understand that it is time to return. I follow him down the stairs and back to the opening in the meadow. He points to the tunnel and I enter as he has shown me how to do. I swim through the tunnel and return to the room, bed, night and world that exist on the other side. When I enter my body, I open my eyes. I am confused and slightly disoriented. I close my eyes and wonder if somehow I am awake in more than one world. I wonder when I will be ready to know what my transformed face means and I wonder when he will return

Periodically the dream. image and painting will resurface. During the duration of my MFA at Goddard College I made a series of 11 videos called Learning to Speak the Language. The video below was the first video in the series and is the continuation of the experience and evolution of the dream. Almost 15 years after the dream, I would go on to create a multi-media performance titled The Ouroboros which also included the dream, the painting and the video.

Thank you for the time you have spent experiencing a piece of my world. I invite you back to watch as the story unfolds. We have a lot of ground to cover.

The Ouroboros is an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon eating its own tail. It is a symbol that represents the perpetual cyclic renewal of life and of coming full circle. It is an ancient whisper that speaks of the eternal return: the cycles of life, death and rebirth leading to immortality. Like an old and ancient beautiful thread, the colors of the Ouroboros are woven throughout time in the Stories of phoenix, dragons, serpents and snakes.

I have come to believe that inside the belly of this ancient snake whom eats its own tail, lies the ooze of primordial unity. Primordial unity related to something existing in or persisting before any beginning with such force and qualities it cannot be extinguished. Within that ooze lies the undifferentiated infancy experience of both mankind and the individual. The ooze from an ocean from which all is born and where all is One. It is from this ocean of ooze that my Story, my tale is born. It is a Story born in a place far away from the concerns or constraints of ticking clocks and time as we have currently come to know it. This tale is seeped in an embryonic fluid that moves through time. Past, present, future and the unknown all swimming together in non-linear form and function. It is from this place that this tale has been woven.

As I followed the trails of this Story, I found myself wondering; could our lives, our personal Stories, our collective Stories, the Stories of all mankind, the Stories of all kind and beyond be from the vast waters of this primordial ocean, from this place which, like the Ouroboros, has no beginning or end? Is it possible that the waters from this ocean swell and rise within us giving rise and fall to our memories and the memories of our origins? Do these waters direct the rhythm and flow of our Stories and our lives? A perpetual pumping of liquid memory that flows through the vessel of our beings in a way that allows us to be continually reborn. If we are reborn in this manner does our birthing hold the possibility of remembering the source of our origins and the agreements that we have made with the source of our existence? Could this liquid, this memory, be a form of Medicine that could benefit humanity and the magnificent world that we all share and which is in desperate need?

I wondered if it is us/we who navigate the rivers and oceans of our lives or are the rivers and the oceans the captains of our sailing and sinking ships, navigating us on a journey that reveals our individual purpose within the Story that we are all a part of? Are we like that ancient snake, both swallowing and disgorging ourselves in an all consuming yarn: each of us following our individual threads in order to be lead to our collective and shared story; a beautiful, expressive unraveling? If we become aware of our relationships with these waters, if we become aware that we are not separate from these waters, are we then able to see its and our own passage through time and space? Are we then able to see that we are all swimming in the same primordial water?

I began to think that perhaps the answers to these questions were unimportant. Perhaps what matters, what is of importance, lies within the seeking of these questions and their answers? Perhaps what matters is being willing. Willing to enter into the mouth of the serpent knowing that you will eventually become the tail that will spiral its way back around and enter into the mouth once again. Willing to become part of the food and part of the Story. Willing to acknowledge our individual responsibility and part in an eternal return. Willing to live a life that is an honoring and remembering of the cycles of life, death and rebirth that leads to immortality and the feeding of an incomprehensibly beautiful dance. These are the question and thoughts that line the trail that I have been following. It is this tale that I have followed in seeking the trailhead. It is this tale that has become the tail of the Ouroboros which is forever seeking the mouth.

If you would like to share your thoughts or have a comment please click on the word COMMENTS below.

Is it possible to notice, mark and observe where one event or life altering occurrence ends and another begins? Is there an interval, a pause, a beat between the spaces of these happenings that can be seen and felt? I believe that there is.

Underneath or covered by the paint on "Interstitial" lies an entire world. In many ways, this world can only be glimpsed by the visible texture on the canvas. In April of this year I had an especially significant dream. This is one of those dreams that when it is "over" your eyes open and you awake with an intense feeling of having shaken hands with the harbinger of your life. It was a dream that foretold of events yet to unfold. One that warned, prepared and communicated messages of happenings and transitions soon to come to pass. One of the messages of the dream was that of my father's passing. As with most significant and powerful dreams it rolled around in my subconscious and would periodically rise to the surface of my awareness - particularly as the events of the waking world began to match up and meet those foretold in the dream. Then there was that particular morning in May. The one in which I awoke and the knew. The very air around me that I was breathing and moving through was different. My father had departed from this world in the night. Slipping past the veil as he slept.

The painting began then...images of and from the dream mixing with images of the messages that had recently been received in the waking world. The painting speaking the language of riddles and dream. Ominous, surreal, heavy, otherworldly and filled with the magic and portent of the space between the worlds.

The Painting

My hands, being, imagination worked those images, the paint, the canvas and my soul for over a month...weaving this world and the passing days with those of the dream and the journey of my father and his story, our story. After a month's work I sat in front of the highly textured canvas - with the exception of my signature and a final coat of sealing glaze I believed it to be complete. The painting sat on the easel for an additional 24 hours. The next time I approached it, I sat in front of it...I looked...I listened...I felt into it with as much of my senses and being as I could possibly muster...and then...I picked up the container of white gesso and did something that I have never done before...I completely covered the completed painting in a layer of white and new beginning. In a way that I have never done before...I let go.

The original image underlying the "Interstitial" painting.

It was not an attempt to erase, forget, hide or escape the dream, its' messages, the grief, my father's death, or the messages of additional transitions yet to come. Rather, it was a new way of being moved. In the week that followed and with no particular end point or final destination held within the boundaries of my mind...fresh paint began to fall upon the canvas. The paint was laid over the highly textured white canvas...with my eyes softened and seeing into those places in-between. In the pause, in the intervals, the interstices of time told the story and rose to the surface and "Interstitial" reached out to make contact and touch me.

There are 13 additional paintings that are currently in progress. 13 paintings that speak to and are a study on and experience of those places and spaces of Interstice. Places formed by the spaces in between, what they hold, what is hidden and revealed in the play and conversation between light and dark, known and unknown, past and present, dream and waking.

These paintings are an invitation. I am a being born of the places of in-between, of the borderlands, of the interstices. Can I reach out from these places? Can I touch you? Can I communicate a piece of a story that I do not hold all of the threads of and to? Can I weave the mystery so you too can be moved? Can I do this is such a way that when you touch or come into contact with the places of in-between, the interstice, you can feel the bridge that unites them both under your feet? I am currently standing on one of these such bridges between here and there.

I have come to understand that there are Stories that Call. Ancient Stories that whisper and speak through symbols, messages, and dreams. Stories that remember ancient agreements and the meaning and purpose of our existence. Stories that are Medicine in the truest sense of the word. I believe that these Stories find ways of reemerging and being born again into our modern society so that we as a people may remember who we are. My particular Story is carried on the vehicle of the Borderlands and the ancient symbol of the Ouroboros.

Let us think of the Borderlands as a place where worlds touch and through their contact, a third or new world is born; a world that inhabits the spaces of in between, a world that serves as bridge, door and portal between the two. It is through the portal of the Borderlands that I first heard the whispers of the Ouroboros.

We are the magical and physical realization of our ancestors. Whether we know it or not, I believe that we are carrying the medicine bundles which have been passed down to us through generations. Whether we are aware or not, I believe that we are seeking to fulfill a legacy of our ancestors’ grail quests and dreams. We are a walking legacy.

I am of the Borderlands...and I am not alone.

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It is tomorrow. Are you sitting in the old rocking chair? Are you moving in time with the rockers as they make their way in and through time and across the floor? Can you hear me rocking next to you, my chair creaking in rhythm and time with yours? Please, take a moment and listen to when the creaking of the wood lines up with one another – when the two sounds form one. This is where we will begin… you and I rocking side by side, sharing a story. And I ask you once again…

Can I touch you?

Can I reach past and through the distance that exists between you and I? Can my skin extend in communion towards yours in such a way that the physical barrier that exists between us melts away? Can I move my fingertips, breath, voice, heart and soul in a manner that weaves a connection between us? Are you willing to let me try?

In August of 2012, in one particular moment, on one particular day, I awoke before the dawn. I knew that they would be coming for me soon. I gathered the bundle that I had prepared to take with me onto the mountain. It was tradition that I be placed on the mountain before the Sun crested over a specific peak in the morning sky. I sat on my bed waiting. My heart beating a little faster than it normally would. Was I ready? What would unfold over the next 4 days and nights? In my mind I ran through the preparations that I had gone through in order to make it this far. As my mind and thoughts caught up with the sweat lodge and the events of the previous night, there was a knock on my door. They had come for me…

Clinging to my bundle I opened the door and looked into the face of the man who had helped me to prepare for this moment and who would lead me into the sacred spot where I would remain for 4 days and 4 nights.

“It is time.”

There were no words spoken as we made the journey in. There was no longer need for words. Each step I took served to remove me from the world of the every day. Each step deeper into the woods and closer to that sacred spot was a step closer to the veil which separates the worlds. After the circle had been opened and I had been placed inside I watched and listened as those who had sung me in turned and waked away…returning to the world that I would cease to belong to for the next 4 days.

I sang the song. The song that had been given to me in fragments and dreams. I sang the song until it became a Being of its own…full and re-membered. I sang the song until it began to sing me. I sang the song until I felt that my voice, my being had been woven into the landscape around me. No longer was I alone on the mountain and in the circle…my breath moved through the raven’s wing that soared above. My breath was in the movement of the needles of the magnificent Ponderosa Pines. The blood that moved in my body was the sound of the River as she moved and jumped through the canyon below.

A myriad of magnificent and wondrous happenings unfolded within those early hours on the mountain as I tied prayer tie after prayer tie.

…the mating and dance of two of the largest Cloudless Sulphur Butterflies…their gorgeous pale yellow wings moving in time inches from my face…

…the pair of cicadas who shed their exoskeletons as I slept and left them directly in front of my closed lids so they would be the first thing my waking eyes took in…

…the three fishermen who entered the circle with their lines full of fish and never saw me sitting behind the boulder tying my prayer ties…

Each of these moments suspended in a soup of time. Each of these moments carrying messages and meaning from beyond the veil. Each of these moments etched into my senses and being. Each of these moments fresh in their birth and yet having always existed in a time outside of time.

As magical and mystical as the beginning of the 4 days was, I hovered between the worlds. It was August in Northern New Mexico and it was over 100 degrees. My body which would go without food and would only receive one small glass of water each night was already struggling. I was dehydrated from the heat of the sweat lodge the evening before. My skin was already beginning to burn in the heat of the Sun. I moved around the circle in time with the Sun…attempting to place myself in the shelter of the Ponderosas and behind the shade of the boulders who were my only shields. Periodically I would “come to my senses” and wonder how I would make it through 4 days and nights. When this panic would begin I would once again begin tying the prayers together. I would once again sing the song.

At some point in the day I was called to the River. I opened and closed the vision circle as I had been shown to do and began scaling my way down the cliff’s edge to the River below. I stripped off my clothing and made my way from rock to rock, my blood moving in time with the River. I sat on one boulder, one particularly large Stone Person. I leaned over the edge of the Stone Altar upon which I placed myself and let me hair fall into the water. As I rose from my submersed position I saw one of my long silver hairs (there were only a few at that time) swirl in the water around me and begin to flow away from the rock. I picked up the silver strand and without thought spoke the following words…

“There is a woman here on a vision quest. I ask that this hair be carried back to the primordial waters. If this hair is received by a Being who wishes to adopt me, they may find me here.”

…and with that I released the silver hair and watched as it moved down the River and out of sight.

I began making my way back up the side of the cliff…back into the circle…and back to the prayers that I had come to make. At moments time passed and at moments it stood perfectly still…suspended. At moments all I thought of was my own selfish needs and how I did not know if I could endure 4 days and night. At moments time ceased to exist and I was the prayer. As the day crept on I watched the Sun carry his load across the sky. I watched and tried to guess how close I was to the Sun’s retreat and the moment that the one blessed container of water would be carried in by the man whose face I had last looked upon. The time was coming closer and everything in me wanted to weep at the thought of that sweet water moving down my throat.

I sat on the ground leaning against a stone with the mound of prayer ties that I had spoken bound and wrapped in a pile to my right side…and then it hit. I began to feel a swirling in the region of me chest between my breasts. The spiraling sensation was such that I felt as if I was going to vomit what little remained in my stomach onto the ground. As I sat there feeling into the sensation I heard a rustling sound to my right. I slowly and cautiously stood to see if I could identify who was close by. When I rose, the first thing that I saw was that of a brown snout moving from behind a tree close to the cliff edge. Panic. My heart began to race and my body began to emit the smell of fear. My mind raced ahead trying to identify what I had seen. My first thought was a wild boar. I sank back onto the ground. I was about to be skewered. I was about to meet my end. Even to this day, the quickness of my thoughts in that moment remains a mystery to me. Breathe….slow down the movement of the time…are there wild boars in New Mexico…who has come to show you’re their face?

Slowly I rose once again in hopes of seeing the one I could hear. As my eyes traveled towards the direction of the sound they came to rest upon who had come to be seen. Standing by the Grandmother Rock who marked the entry into the vision quest site was Bear. Once again I lowered myself to the ground. If I make myself small…oh so small…maybe this Being will move on…this cannot be…I am not worthy to meet such a Being….what do I do…this cannot be happening… As I sat with my racing thoughts, the magnificent Being jumped on top of the boulder that marked the east gate of the vision quest site. Bear and I were now 3 feet apart from each other. I was on the ground and Bear was above me on the boulder. I could feel the eyes on me.

Do not look at him…Keep your head down…Do not look into his eyes. These were my first thoughts as the spiraling in my chest continued. But…some part of me knew. I had called him. The song I had sung was his. He had taught it to me. Slowly I raised my head and my eyes met his. Slowly I stood to face this Being who had come to show me his face. As I stood he jumped from the boulder and landed in front of me. He then began to move to the Ponderosa Pine that abutted the boulder. I reached out and ran my hand down his back. He reached his great paws out and climbed the Ponderosa and then slid down scarring the bark of the tree in great lines. He then once again climbed on top of the boulder and attempted to use his mouth to pull and remove the yellow prayer tie that I had attached to the tree to mark the east gate. Then, once again he turned and looked at me and sat on his haunches on the rock. He began moving his claws out in front of him. As he moved his front paws back and forth the claws clicked together.

You are his song. Sing his song back to him. I opened my mouth and once again sang the sung that I had been taught in dreams. I sang until I had no voice left to keep singing. He sat, moving his great claws back and forth. When I stopped he did as well. He then jumped from the rock and began making his way to the cliff side that extended up the mountain. I watched as he made his way slowly up the side of the cliff. He would disappear into the trees and then reemerge in an open patch of terrain, turning to look at me as I looked at him. Every time our eyes would meet I would begin singing his song again, my voice raspy and spent.

As soon as he cleared the side of the mountain I heard the song that announced the entry of another human into the vision quest site. The water which had been so coveted and then forgotten was arriving. As the proper steps were taken that allowed me to once again speak, I conveyed what had occurred. The scarring of the Ponderosa was examined I was asked the following question…

“What will happen if Bear returns?”

I spoke the truth. “I will go with him.”

I was removed from the mountain that night. I was returned to the bed where I had laid in the predawn hours before part of me was irrevocably changed. I could not sleep. My body continued to vomit and expel anything that was no longer meant to reside within me. In between these great voidings…I lay in bed weeping. For you see…I could hear the stars singing. I could hear the song of the Bear and the song of my bones in the Stars. Did you know that are bones are made of stardust? Did you know that stars sing?

This particular Story is one that until now I have never chosen to share in a public way. I believe that there are stories that are personal. Personal in as much that they hold power unique to the storyteller or individual whose life they were gifted to. The time to tell this story was now. I share this story, my story, not for me…but for you. Why?

Can you keep the rocking chair in motion until next time? Can you listen to what is being said and spoken both in words and in the pauses between? In the deepest of gratitude. Until next time…

"N'd-akinna"

If you would like to share your thoughts or have a comment please click on the word COMMENTS below.

Can I reach past and through the distance that exists between you and I? Can my skin extend in communion towards yours in such a way that the physical barrier that exists between us melts away? Can I move my fingertips, breath, voice, heart and soul in a manner that weaves a connection between us? Are you willing to let me try?

These are times that move the human spirit. I have sat here as the ongoing events in our world continue to ripple through leaving shock waves and tremors or grief, loss, suffering, dismay, wonderment. In light of all that has gone in past and recent events, how many of us have begun yet one more day seeing the headlines and have found ourselves sitting and wondering what can we do? What are our individual and our collective roles? I certainly have. I have struggled to understand. Even as I write this, I feel the tightening in my throat and tears well in my eyes. I have no answer…and yet…and yet…

Can I touch you? Are you willing to let me try?

I am a woman who has many theories that I am constantly and consistently watching…putting to the test so to speak. I have one that I have been turning over for quite some time. I believe that the more authentically we live our lives…the more authentically we share with the world who we are – who we understand ourselves to be…we in some beautiful and strange way grant permission for others to do the same. This is important. This is not always easy. This is often messy. I am speaking of living in your skin with as much truth and integrity as you can muster. How much can you let the rest of us see of who you are? This takes work, willingness and dedication to a constant process of excavation. The excavation being the diligence of monitoring and removing the debris of what we are told we are supposed to be. There will always be those who do not want to look upon your truth…those whose perception will be so incredibly different from you own…those who will tell you that you should act and be one way or another…those who tell you when you are right and when you are wrong. Do you know yourself well enough to know your own truth? You see, I believe we all have a purpose. Every single human being has a unique purpose that can only be fulfilled through their dedication to the excavation of their truth. Much of this excavation comes through moments of struggle and hardship.

I have worn many different hats throughout my life thus far. At one time I was the Education and Outreach Coordinator for a statewide organization. I traveled the state providing education, workshops, and presentations on issues related to sexual and gender identity. I had both the honor and challenge of holding this position in Vermont as it went through the contortions of legalizing civil unions.

One particular presentation that I did at this time is still incredibly vivid in my memory. The presentation was for a high school – teachers and students alike. Throughout the duration of the presentation there was one young man who proved to be incredibly challenging. He sat on top of the desk as if it were a throne. He was the football teams star quarterback. His girlfriend, wearing his letterman’s jacket sat in the desk chair at his feet. Every time I presented a statistic, a story or a piece of information related to new research he would speak out with the opposing viewpoint and statistics. He had charisma. He was popular. He had confidence. He was intelligent. He also had the potential to sway the audience and the majority of the room. Honestly, I was very good at my job and I am skilled at giving people the room they need to maneuver and express their viewpoint. I am also skilled at holding space. That presentation was one of the most challenging that I would experience in the course of that particular career. Finally, after two hours the presentation concluded and the room began to empty out. I began packing up the materials I had laid out on the desk and was thinking about the 3 hour drive I had still to make before I would arrive home. From the corner of the room I heard shuffling and raised my head to see the young quarterback who had so challenged me standing there.

“Can I talk to you for a moment?” he asked.

It had been a long day and I still had a long drive home ahead of me. My first thought was…great…here comes the personal attack. I took a moment to prepare myself and then answered, “Of Course.”

With his head down he walked over to me until he stood directly in front of me. As he lifted his head there were tears in his eyes as he said, “I am so sorry.” The tears came harder as he continued, “I just couldn’t let them know that you were talking about me. I could not let them all know who I really am.” Then he said, “I will never forget you. You have given me something to hold onto.” He turned and left the room.

Can I touch you? Are you willing to let me try?

There are so, so many stories that I could share. Stories that have formed and shaped me. Stories that excavated and revealed layers of my truth and purpose, as I know them thus far to be. But as I was thinking of writing this installment, as I sat here wondering what my role and purpose was and is in regards to the events that continue to unfold in our shared world and realities, I began to think of a different story that I wanted to share. A different type of story that speaks to walking in one’s truth and in one’s authenticity. A story that I thought I would never share in this particular way. But these are strange times.

Remember that old rocking chair from the first two installments? Can you pull her up and start her rocking motion back and forth? Can you hear me rocking next to you, my chair creaking in rhythm and time with yours? Perhaps as you move through your day today you can listen for the sound of that rocking chair. Take a moment to listen when the creaking of the wood lines up with one another – when the two sounds form one. Then tomorrow…this is where we will begin. You and I rocking side by side, sharing a story. And I will ask you once again…

Can I touch you?

Can I reach past and through the distance that exists between you and I? Can my skin extend in communion towards yours in such a way that the physical barrier that exists between us melts away? Can I move my fingertips, breath, voice, heart and soul in a manner that weaves a connection between us? Are you willing to let me try?

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If by chance you have become familiar with my practices and beliefs as an artist and human being then you have a sense of my dedication and commitment to what I refer to as "Artist as Keeper of Ancestry & Lineage". It is one of the main reasons that for the past year I have done a daily post entitled "Artists Remembered". I believe in remembering and honoring the legacies of my fellow artists - those individuals whose shoulders I stand upon so to speak. Over the last couple of days I have watched as an article entitled...

has been circulating on social media feeds. Before I go any further I would like to say that I am a lover of Ms. O'Keeffe and her work. I am an individual who loves to learn about the grittiness of people's stories and lives. I prefer to learn about the quirks, oddities, hardships, triumphs, misgivings, mistakes, and flaws of my fellow human beings at the same time that I am learning about their strengths, fortitude, courage, vitality, originality, talent, and vision. It is in the intersection or borderlands between what is so often is described as "good or bad", "right or wrong", "truth or fiction" that I find the reality that for me is the most solid of grounds. I love Ms. O'Keeffe's story, her art, her legacy and her contribution.

Now, with that said, I will continue...

Approximately 2 years ago I stood on the land that is now called "Ghost Ranch" (a land and place that has a story and history far more expansive than Ms. O'Keeffe and its usage as a dude ranch - but that is another story.) I listened and heard for the first time as the tour guide pointed us in the direction of Cerro Pedernal and told us the story of Ms. O'Keeffe and her mountain - "God told me if I painted it enough, I could have it." Honestly, I literally guffawed and laughed out loud. I stood there as the other members of the tour turned and looked at me, shocked and dismayed. Yes, this is part of Georgia's story. Yes, it is important to tell in relation to her, her paintings and her life.

and yet...when I say one of my basic tenants as an artist and human being is "Artist of Keeper of Ancestry and Lineage" perhaps it is important to say that I also believe that this phrase, idea, theory, practice extends way beyond what I believe may be understood as the current definition of the word "artist". I offer the following excerpt from my Artist Statement as further explanation...

"As an artist living at the intersections between cultural traditions, I follow a living tradition of experiencing and engaging in the process and creation of art as “medicine”. My artistic creations are interdisciplinary in nature and explore and rise out of the relationship between worlds: a place I refer to as The Borderlands. These in between places hold valuable information regarding the origins of medicine and disease, spirit and matter, and the relationships that exist between all that is. My art is informed and inseparable from my own personal ancestry and lineage. It is connected to and preceded by those who have gone before me and those who have honored and have knowledge of the relationship between art and medicine.

In approaching my artistic endeavors as medicine, I view their creation simultaneously as art, philosophy, prayer, science, ceremony and craft. The subjects of my artistic explorations are treated as entities of body, mind and spirit in a biological, cultural and spiritual circumstance from which they cannot be extricated. They are messages or moments of contact that have passed through me in an attempt to bring awareness, recognition and healing to the nature of the relationships that exist between all beings."

Sometimes when I am very passionate about something, my virgo/scorpio brain can kick into a hyper-drive so to speak. So I hope that to a certain extent I am making myself somewhat clear. What is missing in this article about Georgia and her mountain? In my heart, head, body and soul who that "mountain" is in Ms. O'keeffe's story is just as important, if not more so than Ms. O'Keeffe herself. In my belief's that mountain or Cerro Pedernal cannot be given to anyone by any god. It is the people who are given to Her. I offer the following excerpt from the Book, Valley of the Shining Stone, The Story of Abiquiu by Leslie Polling-Kempes as to who this Being, this Mountain, Cerro Pedernal is...

"...The Chama provides the valley with the water that is its lifeblood, Tsee p'in to the Tewa (both names meaning "flint or flaking stone mountain"), that is the region's heart, and perhaps the keeper of the its spirit too.

Pedernal has been a landmark on the physical and spiritual maps of a dozen cultures spanning a thousand years. The cerro's flat, distinctively truncated head holds a familiar yet mythological posture on the New Mexican horizon for up to fifty miles in several directions. from the north or south, Pedernal appears to be shaped like a long, flat knife; from the eats and west, its narrow summit is a mere knob. In reality it is both of these. Pedernal's truncated neck is long and narrow, its summit an island of chert standing three thousand feet above the floor of the Valley of Shining Stone.

Over the centuries, Pedernal has become sacred ground to several Native American tribes. Like the Piedre Lumbres and all of the regioin of Abiquiu. Pedernal is part of the ancestral lands of the Rio Grande Tewa, who have ceremonial sites on the cerro's sloping sides.

Navajo myth explains the Changing Woman, one of the four principle figures in the Navajo Origin Myth, was found wrapped in many colored lights on a flat topped mesa to the east of Navajoland, somewhere in the Jemez Mountains. Diné signers do not agree upon the exact location of Changing Woman's origin, but there is speculation that the sacred ground is in the mountains west of Abiquiu, specifically, upon the peak called Pedernal.

The Navajo's historic enemy, the Jicarilla Apache, also include Pedernal in the people's Emergence Story. Jicarilla oral historians remember how Pedernal was the first mountain seen by Spider Woman: "When Spider Woman first came upon this earth, there was only one mountain, and that was to the east. Flint Mountain was its name. It is still there in Abiquiu..."

I have lived in northern New Mexico for almost six years now. I am not from this land - I come from another land who has her own stories of great beings whose bodies are the mountains, lakes and valleys. Although I am not born of this particular land, and soon I will be leaving here for the shores of another...I do know that in my experience, in my world, if you approach a place, a land quietly and with the intention of learning its story, it will reveal parts of itself to you. From the moment my eyes first fell upon Cerro Pedernal it was clear that she could never be "mine". I wept the first time I saw her, the first time I felt her. Instead of wanting her, I felt the desire to drop to my knees and bow my head in her presence. In that moment, the voice that I can sometimes hear in my head and my heart spoke the word, "Mother".

In a few moments I will finish this post. Perhaps I will feel slightly calmer in knowing that the "mountain that Georgia left her cheating husband for" has been remembered, her name spoken. She is Cerro Pedernal and if we are lucky, if we ask beautifully, if we listen to hear her whispers... we may be given to Her.

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Like waves that both crashed against my shore and gently lapped along my edges, I laid in a state of ecstasy, feeling the ripples and energy of the waves wash over me. I knew that I had been forever moved from where I once stood. As my rational mind slowly made its way back from the depths of the watery realm, I watched as the Willow gracefully collaborated with the Wind in the most exquisite of dances. For just a moment; the part of me which had not returned, the part of me which was still dancing on the edge of ecstasy could see the web that held it all together. The Willow and her roots always seeking water, always trying to find her way home to the Mother. Her dance was for the Mother of us all, the one she continually longs to be close to, the one that is home and the one that sustains life. For just a moment I could see her roots stretching like a network of fragile neurons, reaching for that which she loves, longs for, weeps for and always remembers.

What had only moments before been ecstasy moved into the deepest waters of grief. I would later find myself on my knees weeping as I had watched the Willow do. I spoke words to the Mother of us all. As the tears flowed from my eyes I made an oath that I would do my part to assist in remembering Her...

For the last year the water in my dreams has been steadily rising. Even when the dreams have been rooted in the sands and surroundings of this desert home, they have been messages speaking of the water's arrival. The rising of tides. The dry riverbeds of the arroyos flooding. In this nightly realm, even when the speech and messages have spoken to the absence of water, they have spoken about the events that will occur upon its arrival.

What of the last five years of my inhabitance in this desert landscape has been or has served a purpose of "drying me out"? An evaporation or hollowing, a burning away of what is no longer needed or necessary for me to carry. Old ways of thinking like ancient aquifers that no longer reach to the places in need of irrigation, baking in the sun to dry and crumble and once again return to the earth. What if I have been training on how to survive and thrive in conditions such as these?

As of late, the liquid landscape of the dreams has been increasing in intensity. Their message growing in strength, and speaking of a quickening. What if the magnificent Ocean Mother has been calling to me? Letting me know of our meeting or perhaps more appropriately of our reunion? When I made the journey to this arid land that has been my home for the past five years I thought then that I would root here for the remainder of my life. I had been called here in dreams by the voices of those whose legacies and lives have been seeped into this ground. This beautiful, rugged, wild and carved landscape has taught me much. She opened her arms and embraced me, and then, as she held me tight, she began her tempering. One lesson after another...parasitic infestations...the plummet of financial instability...near death by carbon monoxide poisoning...lessons on love and betrayal...a touch with bubonic plague...boulders falling from mesas and destroying my transportation...a swarm of locusts devouring the fruits of the garden...the list goes on and on...

I wrapped my arms around her neck and held on tight, praying that she would change her embrace. I prayed that she would kiss me gently, whisper in my ear and speak to me of our love for one another. There were moments of such tenderness. Moments when she and I held hands and matched our footsteps to one another. But as a lover she would not marry her hand to mine. As is the case with lovers who sometimes magically enter our lives, the passion and the desire for union was intense, beautiful, epic - they teach us much. They hold a mirror of reflection up and we are blessed to see more clearly our own faces. She has done this for me. She has revealed pieces of my landscape that I had yet to know, that I could not see, that I refused to look at.

As the marking of time passed and the events and happenings of the previous year drew to a close, an unexpected man entered my life. He arrived in this desert land with the whisper of the Ocean. The smell of her wind and body carried magically and embedded in his skin, being, words and way of existence. Recently I have found myself wondering if she had sent him to carry me in his arms to her. The cargo is being prepared. The route is being mapped and the sailing crew is almost assembled. The voyage from this land of sand and sun will set sail on August 20th, making a voyage that will lead to the waters.

Mother, I am coming home to sit upon your shores and fulfill the promise that we spoke of in the watery realm of the dreams.

"Mother's Nature"

What had only moments before been ecstasy moved into the deepest waters of grief. I would later find myself on my knees weeping as I had watched the Willow do. I spoke words to the Mother of us all. As the tears flowed from my eyes I made an oath that I would do my part to assist in remembering Her...

That night as I slept I had the following dream…

I am slowly meandering my way along a vast and expansive shoreline. There is only the shoreline, the Ocean, the edge created by their meeting and the sound and movement of the Wind. As I travel along the edge I glimpse a small hut a ways off in the distance. As I approach the hut I notice the absence of a door. I step through the opening and find myself inside with a Woman who is of substantial matter. She is sitting on the floor of the hut as if she has always been there, waiting. Her skin is the color of the deepest of sand and copper and her flesh is bountiful and gracefully drapes her bones in abundance and the wealth of her knowing. Her hair flows in thick and wild ropes around her shoulders, past her heaving breasts and touches the earthen floor of the hut. In front of the Woman is a low table made of driftwood that has swam in the waters of the Ocean since time began. On the table there is a row of necklaces each bearing an amulet. Each amulet has been made from pieces of the Ocean, pieces of Her. The Woman lifts her head and her eyes meet mine. She says the following; “My daughters are going to be in a play for the Ocean. Each daughter must pick an amulet to wear.” She finishes speaking and simply holds my gaze with her large eyes. It is as if she has always been here. Waiting.

Less then a week after having this dream I was visited by a young woman. Upon arriving at my home she presented me with a present from her recent travels to the Ocean. She opened her hand to reveal a necklace with an amulet made from a white bursa center cut seashell. As she handed me the amulet she said, “I wanted to bring you an amulet from the Ocean.” As I turned to look at this young woman, for just one moment, in her eyes, I saw the eyes of that beautiful copper skinned Woman who has always been there. Waiting.

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The world of my dreams drips - rich in images, symbols and swirling paint.

Many years ago I began to think of the dream world as a reality that formed or was in parallel with that of the waking world. Dream visions and symbols began to pass through my being, the paintbrush in my hands, and onto the canvas that I painted. In reverse, the same occurrence was also true. Paintings that waited unfinished on the easel slipped into my dreams where the next layer of their becoming was revealed through symbols, events and other dream realm beings and participants. This has remained an ongoing reality.

My dreams are the voices of ancient and unborn storytellers. These storytellers read life back to me, reveal messages of what has yet come to pass and weave the thread of my life's story with images, symbols, colors, sounds and otherworldly happenings. When the dreams sound their calling I have learned to listen. When the dreams do not speak, their silence is deafening, My body is the borderland where the worlds of dream and waking meet.

It has been almost 20 years since I had the dream that was the impetus and inspiration for the painting that bares the title "Turquoise Soul" . When I awoke to find myself in this particularly dreamscape I had not yet laid eyes upon this land and earth which would become my home. It would be another eleven years before this waking world would move in tandem to the messages the dream had conveyed. It would be fifteen years until the borderlands of my body would bring these two realities together and join them in paint, turquoise, beads, feathers, copper wire and the soil of this land. But before I picked up the paintbrush and swirled the image of the dream into being, the experience of waking and walking in the dream world on that particular night was written in the pages of my journal...

Dream of the Winged God.

Above is an ocean of cerulean blue.Cliffs formed from layers of sand and story rising to greet the skyA solitary wind howls and moans. The wind’s voice seems to carry the sound of a name that I cannot quite hear.

I am holding my son’s hand and we are walking through this pregnant canyon There is a slight pause, an irregular beat in the rhythm of spaceIt is enough to reveal that we are in the land of dreamsOff in the distance I see a large bird soaring through the open sky.The great bird approachesmy mind tries to comprehend the truth of the message that my eyes continue to send.As the distance between us closes, the illusion fades in its entirety and I am left standing in the presence of an approaching god.

In his wings span the centuries of time painted in the flame of turquoise, gold, white and copperTrails of wind left by his soaring wings push down upon us with the force of a gale.In the passage of the wind from his wings is a song that sings of the deepest rivers of sadness.In the passage of the wind from his wings is the hope for a people and of a place.In the passage of his wings are the threads of songs that are unraveling and forgotten – lost in the holes of time.In the passage of the wind from his wings is an embrace, which holds the breath of hope – eternal returnTears swell from in ancient eternal river and I weep at the aching love story, An ancient, rooted song so old and so fragile,

As the feathers of his wings brush by my head, he rises and shoots straight into the painted sky.The sky opens and an emblem of beauty is revealed. Ancient symbols dancing to form a magical portal, a door. Designs formed from the color of clouds, gilded feathers, stones that sing, and the metal made from stars receive him into the heavens from which he came.I am left in the wake of a passing deity holding my small son’s small hand Listening to the wind echo the lament and sadness that has been conveyed by his proximity.The wind’s voice seems to carry the sound of a name that I cannot quite hear. …blowing through the canyon from the time in the memory of before.

The dreams have once again begun sounding their calling. Fresh paint is drying on the canvas in the studio. The storytellers are turning the pages of time. There is a new chapter which has been carved into the stones of memory. I am walking between the worlds of what has been and what is yet to come.

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It begins by closing my eyes and allowing myself to wander through the hallways of collected memories. The hallways in this interior world of recall are a dreamlike and misty place. A place where doorways open into pockets of times passed. When these pockets of time first formed, when they first occurred in their present moment, there was no way of knowing that they would form rooms and doorways constructed of their images, sounds and smells. In their inception, there was no way of knowing that they would live beyond the doorways that appear in the hallways of my memories. When I lower the windows that cover my eyes, I am searching for where you live inside of me. I am searching for those pockets of time that have been etched into my soul, the place where your memory will always live and continues to move through me and my footsteps.

There is a place housed within my body and in close proximity to my heart that always begins to tremble and shake when I know I am moving in these hallways and I am approaching where you live. I always know I am getting closer when I begin to hear the echo of your laughter. I never knew that part of what I would long for and hold so dear would be the sounds your life made. Like a beautiful old vinyl record complete with the sounds of crackling and ambience created by time's passing. The passing of your days and life have left a soundtrack.

If I close my eyes and wander through the hallways of my soul there is a door which opens upon a scene from my early childhood. Did you know? Did you know that when you would disappear into your bedroom and I heard the latches on the guitar case clicking and opening that some part of me began to dance and sing inside? Did you know that when I would place myself on the floor at your feet and I would stare up at you, watching and listening to you play your guitar and sing? In those moments I was a girl, a daughter at peace. I did not have words then for what I now understand. From my spot on the floor I would look up and wonder how the fingers on your hands could work. How hands that had been marked by a life of hard work, holding tools, stained by years of grease, carved in cuts and old wounds made by the engines and parts of thousands of cars could begin to move and allow for that sound to wash over me. That thought would fade as I watched your fingers press down and glide over the strings and as the sound that you made with your hands and your voice changed your face. I knew you to be happy then. I knew some part of you opened and existed in connection to the clicking and unlatching of that guitar case.

If I close my eyes and wander through the hallways of my soul there is a door from which the sounds of waters flow. I still hear you in the movement of water. The sound a fishing pole makes as it cuts through the air and lands upon the surface of a lake. There is a connection between the image of your hands turning the steering wheel of a boat and the sound of the water parting in rhythm to the actions and choices of your hands. I can still see you standing at the window looking out over the lake. Your stillness and silence was a conversation with that body of water that was in so many ways your home. For me, you and your memory will always be tied to the song of the water. The sound of your laughter will always bounce upon ripples and waves.

As time passed and you and I both grew older the sounds that marked your place in my world began to change. The last time I made the journey home did you know? Did you know I was watching and listening to you? I watched you as you put your sandals on over your socks - no longer comfortable walking on bare feet whose bones had contorted with the passing of time, age, and a life lived. In the early morning hours I listened from my bed when you were being so careful not to wake me. I listened and memorized the shuffling cadence of your sandal covered steps. Tears would slip from my eyes. I knew then that I would not have the chance to hear you pad past my door again. If I close me eyes and wander through the hallways of my soul there is a door from which I can hear you softly humming and singing a song as the sound of your sandals shuffling past can still be heard.

You never had the chance to meet in person the man whom I would come to call my husband. The two of you would only pass each other in this world for a short time. Held within that time was a shining moment. On the day that he asked you for permission to take my hand, your daughter's hand, you spoke to him of wild horses. You spoke about how you can tame a wild horse but how you cannot ever keep it down. I wept after that phone call. Until that moment I never knew you understood this about me. I never knew that you saw and understood me to be as I knew myself to be. If I close my eyes and wander through the hallways of my soul there is a door that opens upon a field where the sound of a wild horse's running hooves are connecting with the earth. You are standing on the edges of this field and you are smiling and laughing.

If I close my eyes and wander through the hallways of my soul, there is a doorway that exists and through which I cannot clearly see. It is the doorway of my passing. The doorway which holds what will come to pass when I am no longer in or of this world. I have thought about what lies beyond this doorway and I have often wondered if I will become part of the images and colors of this world when I am gone from here. Will I become the painter of the sunrises or sunsets when I walk in the other world? Perhaps I will become the colors themselves - the vibrant green of a newly spouted seed, the magnificent cerulean blue of the water's deep.

The last time I heard the sound of your voice, the last time I spoke with you...it was not said....but we both knew...it was the last time. In what was not being spoken, everything was being said. The last words and sounds that I heard from you were, "Be good to each other. I love you." I have heard those words every day since the day you passed. I hear you in the sound of the water's movement. I listen for you in the whir of engine motors. I hear your shuffle in the passing of sandal covered feet. Your laughter lives in the jokes and stories told when family gathers together. In your passing from this world, you have become part of the beautiful rhythms and harmonies of the song and soundtrack of mine.

But perhaps where you exist most for me is in the sound of the unlatching of the guitar case that I carried home and in the sound created as I press my fingers down upon the strings. I am once again a girl, your daughter and I am at peace. This song is for you...

Raymond Joseph Geoffrey - 02/18/1946 - 05/05/2016

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As the old rocking chair continued making its grooved motion back and forth and I thought of all that had recently come to pass...how those tectonic plates of my foundation had shifted and come to rest in new and previously unknown locations I wondered. I wondered, did I have it in me to rise one more time? My life and story have kept time and space with ancient creatures and their multitude of representations. The Phoenix. Dragons. The Ouroboros. The threads of their mysteries are woven throughout the images of my artistic and spiritual practices and the worlds in which I inhabit. Like the ancient snake circling around to eat its own tail (tale), was I ready once more to let go of what needed to fall away and shed my skin? Like the magnificence of the firebird, was I ready to step from the ashes of what had burned and what remained into a new form and spread my wings to fly? Those who have known me or who have witnessed my story's unfolding have at times spoken about the colorful and seemingly dramatic rhythms of my life: the glorious rises, the plummeting falls, all the mysterious events that seem to move through the passage of my years.

In my newly found willingness to share my stories and thoughts with the world beyond my own skin in a written form, I offer my deepest vulnerability. Please allow me a moment for further explanation as to why it is important for me to say this out loud. I am a painter. As I mentioned in my last communication this identification and knowing, this act and process of painting, well...this is my terra firma...my solid ground. I do not question it. I never have. Whether or not a painting sells, or whether or not I receive affirmation or acclaim for the act of painting or the corresponding result in many ways is inconsequential. For me there is no choice. I was born to hold a paintbrush. I was born to swirl colors into formation and images. It is as essential to my being as breathing, I do not mean to say that I do not embrace or welcome the monetary benefit that could result from the engagement of painting. Nor do I mean to convey that when a person witnesses or is moved by one of my paintings it is not appreciated or beneficial. What I am saying is that if those factors ceased to exist you would still find me holding a paintbrush and mixing paint.

In this act, the process of painting, I am incapable of lying, withholding, or telling someone what they desire to hear or see. Painting is my truth. At times this truth is raw, beautiful, ugly, not easily understood (even by me), simple, complex...whatever it is...it is a piece of my internal landscape, my mystery, my magic, my soul, my story. At times people have suggested that I paint images that are more easily understood or embraced by a wider public. These suggestions have come with the best of intentions and perhaps a desire for those who care about me to have the joy and experience of seeing a lifetime of work begin to "pay off". I understand this logic and reasoning and yet I am incapable of doing so. To do so would be a lie and a coercion of some core part of my existence. I know for some this will sound dramatic, but it would be the beginning of the death of a part of my spirit.

So why? Why do I share this with you? Why do I share with you this insight regarding my feelings and thoughts around what it means for me to bring an image onto the canvas? Because the same promise and process exists within my commitment to sharing these written words. The truth is I have been writing for years. There are books upon books, pages upon pages of my thoughts. I have been asked by numerous and various people to share them before but it has never felt right to do so...until now. Perhaps it has always been too close to the bone.

And so...back to that glorious old rocking chair. Back to that moment when I rocked back and forth and I asked myself the question - Do I have it in me one more time to rise? You see, as I rocked back and forth I honestly did not know. This time it was different, everything seemed different. The driving energetic force that had always propelled me forward had shifted along with those tectonic plates. I kept rocking back and forth and a thought began to creep in. What if...what if instead of shedding my skin and feeling as if I had to protect that oh so tender new and exposed skin, the skin I did not yet know...what if instead of rising from the ashes of what remained into a new form...what if I chose to step fully into the skin that had been being formed around my blood and bones? What if I began moving from the inside out? Perhaps this seems easier for an outsider looking in to realize, but for me it was revolutionary. In that moment, in the rocking of the old chair, I understood that I had to think about it differently. This time I could not shed or rise. This time I needed to step into and inhabit who I am becoming.

The old rocking chair made the sound of of its bones creaking as I continued to move back and forth and I believe the friction of its' moving sparked a small and delicate flame. That flame flickered and I was moved. What if like a painting, this was an offering from my soul...what if I shared the experience of my inhabitance with you? You who might be interested in what I might have to say. In that moment I made a decision to fully inhabit my skin and a commitment that I would share what I had been previously unwilling to do so.

Here is my promise to you whose eyes are moving over the formation of these words - I will be honest and I will paint now not only with images but also with words the picture of my soul. The same rules will apply...I will not make a portrait of myself that is easier for the masses to embrace or one that is an inaccurate depiction of who I am or understand myself to be, I offer you me, as honestly as I am capable of seeing myself as I begin consciously inhabiting the skin around my blood and bones. I have always believed that we grant each other permission. What do I mean by this you might ask. Well, I believe that the more capable you are of being truly and authentically who you are and the more you live or inhabit this authentic truth, the more you allow or give permission for others to do the same. What I have to say and what I will write is in many ways an invitation and one I offer with and in the deepest of love.

So...it is time for us to pull up our beautiful, old, creaking rocking chairs and let us sit side by side. Let the stories begin.